Period and cohort-specific trends in life expectancy at different ages: Analysis of survival in high-income countries

The number of older adults is increasing in high-income countries as survival chances continue to improve. We investigate changes in survival at older ages in high-income countries and show that although survival chances have improved, these improvements are concentrated at the top of the survival distribution where there is a small share of the population. Among females who survive to age 85 in the most recently birth cohort (1925), for example, about half die within 8 years while those in the top 25% of the survival distribution live at least 50% longer (12 years or more). Importantly, these results indicate that having some individuals reach exceptionally old age does not imply that the majority of the population is living longer. In addition, estimates of lifespan inequality at older ages suggests that years of life lost because of death have increased in recent times and among recently born cohorts leading to an increase uncertainty in the age at death at older ages. Thus, slow survival improvements at ages 65+ suggest that most of the population is unlikely to reach long life expectancies in the near future, which may lead to lower than expected fraction of adults reaching older ages.